Changeling

I turned another year older yesterday. I looked in the mirror to see an aging face, tired from work, tired from parenting, tired from not having time to do the things that make my heart come alive. I read another blog from a “tired mom” type this morning while having coffee in bed and she commented that a reader reached out asking if she wrote about anything other than being exhausted. I laughed. It comes with the territory of raising children. Maybe this blog is the same old story.

I turned another year older, another day in the reality of living in the tension, the pressure cooker of working full time, attending grad school, commuting 45 minutes to work, helping raise three boys, being a good wife/friend to my husband, and at the same time maintaining my own health, physically and spiritually, let alone attempting to invite others into that vulnerable, scary place of being seen in what I call “zombie land”, that hazy grey area of sleep deprivation, depression, and lack of dreaming that leaves you looking like a shell of your former self. Who wants to be seen like that? Who would want to invite friends, especially old friends, into the drama of your current crucible? Welcome to the land of the undead! I’m still here, I think…

I’ve heard it said that the greatest shame of all would be to live a life that was successful, yet unfulfilled. Oh how I fight that desperately, like a bird in a cage flapping its wings against the bars…I am the creator of this containment, I am the one who has yielded.

Another year, another day, and somehow, this year has been different simply by a fresh conversation, started by one of my oldest and dearest friends. Followed by another message or two, reaching out, a song sent here, a text conversation there, a random call on the evening commute. I see you. I hear you. I’ve walked this way too, I am in my own crucible. I’m calling out the gold in you. Changeling. I’m here for the change and I’ll call your heart from the tomb. I see you.

Thus begins the mutual exchange of shared experience, one in which we all rely upon. Humanity is resilient when we know we aren’t alone. In all our individuality, we are pack creatures. Even the most introverted of all need to know they are seen, understood, and somehow, some way, known.

It started two decades ago in a living room with insecure, unsure teenagers, those few formative years planted a precious seed. Twenty years later, in the dead of my winter season, hope begins to stir in me, the ground begins to shift.

Another year, another day and somehow, what was there at the start is here again at my new beginning. What was there when dreams were once birthed is here again at their resurrection.

Success for me has looked like a great career, two degrees, a wonderful marriage, three beautiful sons. Yet this success for me has been a type of death, one I have willingly yielded to when pressed against the Rock. However, just like in all great stories and myths, all which reflect the Truth in the greatest story of all, resurrection happens to those who die with hope.

Raise me to life and let me link arms with those who see me, with those I see, with eyes that see beyond the fog of this present life, where our ageless faces will shine with the Glory of the Everlasting, where all dreams bloom in time and the winter fades into memory.